The poster featured only six words: “Woman, women, noun, adult human female.” Yet they were still deemed too dangerous by one transgender activist who has branded the poster, which carries the dictionary definition of woman, as hate speech in an “absurd” and “Orwellian” row.

The giant poster in Liverpool quoted the definition of woman, according to the Google dictionary.

It survived for about a week before it was removed under pressure from Adrian Harrop, a Twitter activist and NHS doctor, who complained that it made transgender people feel unsafe.

He successfully demanded its removal after lobbying the chief executive and senior directors of the billboard company, Primesight, on social media, accusing them of being complicit “in the spread of transphobic hate speech”.